Christmas Party
by UlquihimeAnCafeMatsuJun
Summary: Orihime hosts a Christmas party without Ulquiorra's help. Although it annoys him that he can't help, he finds out why she wouldn't let him later out during gift opening.
1. Chapter 1

**An Early Christmas Fic**

**Disclaimer: Not mine, belongs to Kubo, blah blah blah**

**Christmas Party**

**Ulquiorra groaned. It was that accursed time of the year again. Glitter, garland, and bright lights littered the woman's small apartment. It wasn't that Christmas was annoying for him, it just ticked him off that he had no time with the woman, seeing as how she was always out and about busying herself with buying gifts for everybody she knew, which included the hermit who lived in the basement of the apartment building. She was even buying gifts for Soul Society and having Kuchiki Rukia and Abarai Renji transport the gifts for her. The two shinigami were more than happy to help their friend out, considering the two were betting on how much longer Ulquiorra would last before he exploded of anger and loneliness. According to the what had been betted, Rukia would soon be the winner. **

"**Onna, quit scampering about and hang out with me," Ulquiorra said to his auburn-haired girlfriend. He had offered to leave the comforts of his shared apartment with a child-like Nel, in order to help Orihime out. Nel, who saw Orihime as her mother , had wanted to come to, but she had a Christmas play rehearsal down at the local elementary school. However, whatever help Ulquiorra was offering was quickly dismissed because the woman was wrapping presents. **

"**I have to finish wrapping the presents," Orihime replied. She put the finishing touch on Byakuya-san's gift, which ended up being an alarm that would help him catch whoever had been stealing the koi from his beloved pond. She then started on Ishida's, making sure to make it extra fancy, considering he was now something akin to a fashion designer, although he just starting out.**

"**Just do it later."**

"**Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so they need to be under my tree tonight, "Orihime said. Everybody agreed that the Christmas party was to be celebrated at her apartment building. The landlord was fond Orihime, seeing her as a granddaughter, and allowed her the keys to a nicely-sized unused room downstairs, which was the decided location for the teenagers' party. **

"**Why can't I help you, it will get finished faster?" Ulquiorra asked.**

"**I don't want you to see your present or possibly blab to another person."**

"…**whatever suits you, onna." Ulquiorra had finished his presents. He had bought gifts for many people. Ichigo, for being a good friend after the war, and the same was for Renji. Chad was especially a good friend of Ulquiorra's, considering both were quiet and had mutual understandings on life. Rukia was also a very good friend, considering she was the reason Ulquiorra and Orihime had gotten together. He owed it to Rukia for his happy life with Orihime. Nel was like his daughter, so of course he got her a gift. Tatsuki always scuffed him up during P.E., often exclaiming she was toughening him up for a future life with Orihime. He owed Tatsuki for giving him the power to consume Orihime's dangerous food without dying. Last on the list was Urahara, Jinta, Ururu, and Tessai, for being the first one's besides Orihime to accept him in the human world. Ulquiorra did not get along with Ishida, considering Ishida still had lingering feelings for Orihime. Anyways, for the sake of Orihime, he had bought him coal. Perhaps it would the four-eyes get inspiration for coal-colored fashion. Orihime got a good number of gifts from him however.**

"**All done," Orihime exclaimed as she came back up from taking down the gifts to the room a few hours later. She then kissed a tired Ulquiorra good-bye before he left, and then went to bed, anticipating the party tomorrow.**


	2. Chapter 2

The next day was a joyous one filled to the brim with presents, food, laughter(save for Ulquiorra), and excitement.

"We all give thanks to Orihime and Ulquiorra for arranging this wonderful party for us," Rukia said.

"Orihime did all the work," Ulquiorra said. Orihime blushed. Did he have to put all of the attention on her? He had already embarrassed her with the twenty-something gifts that he had gotten her, ranging from a beautiful necklace to the new comic book series that she had wanted to buy so that she and Rukia could read it.

"Why didn't you help her, you lug?'' Ishida asked, who was stilled pissed off at the gift of coal, which although it gave him a few ideas for some dresses, was not worth it due to Ichigo prodding him with a ruler afterwards and saying that someone had gotten on Santa's naughty list.

"She wouldn't let me, even though I asked like a thousand time," Ulquiorra said.

"Ne, Orihime, it's ok to accept help sometimes," Rangiku said. She and Toshiro were celebrating the season with Orihime and company. Rangiku was all for it, and surprisingly Toshiro was as well. The prodigy had a soft spot for Orihime, whom he wouldn't mind accepting as a replacement for Rangiku in the tenth division, should the girl ever become a shinigami.

"I know, but since Ulquiorra did most of the grunt work last year, I decided to take most of the work and let him experience his second Christmas more clearly," said Orihime. Ulquiorra knew she was lying, considering that he was so clueless about Christmas last year that he possibly could not have helped her at all with the festivities. Anyways, he had yet to open Orihime's gift to him, considering she asked him to open it after everybody else. Everybody was done except for Rukia, who had gone last. She was gushing over the Chappy-themed manga comic that he had bought her, and she proclaimed him the best brother ever, and he was sure Byakuya was seething and planning a thousand ways to kill him. Not that he cared of course. With Orihime around Byakuya couldn't do a thing. The captain liked her, but that was expected considering most of Soul Society had warmed up to the girl's antics.

"I'm done, so let's see what my best girlfriend got you, Ulquiorra," said Rukia. Ulquiorra gulped. Orihime mentioned that Rukia had helped her, and therefore he was afraid that perhaps they had bought him Chappy-themed boxers, and that when he opened it, the rest of the boys in the room would laugh and slap his back and dare him to put them on. Orihime said she wanted something practical for him, which would be the boxers part, but Rukia would no doubt be responsible for the childish but admittedly cute bunnies known as Chappy.

He took the decent sized box and removed the festive ribbons and came upon a scrapbook, which was filled to the brim of things that Ulquiorra had done with the rest of his friends when Orihime had kicked him out of the apartment while she worked. There was a picture of him arm-wrestling Ichigo, buying gifts for Orihime with Rukia, drinking tea with Chad, and butting heads and throwing insults with Ishida with Renji in the background and taking pictures and notes for Soul Society's newspaper.

"I wanted no help from you because I wanted you to see all the fun times you had with your friends on Christmas, especially since that is what Christmas is about, friends," Orihime said. She had followed Ulquiorra with a camera to capture the endearing moments of his first official Christmas, much like a parent does, although she did this as his girlfriend, not his mother. Everybody looked through the book. There was a cute picture of Ulquiorra attending Nel's rehearsal, a bad picture of Ichigo as his nostrils enlarged and took in a sneeze, with Ulquiorra and Renji decking for cover. Rukia was seen pushing Ulquiorra into a picture booth by himself so that she could get some pictures for Orihime to use in the scrapbook, and a picture of Ulquiorra and Chad drinking tea and reading like old men, which was further highlighted by Ulquiorra's need for reading glasses. Ishida and Ulquiorra were seen arguing in a picture with a goofy Renji capturing it on camera the same time as Orihime.

Ulquiorra was happy in his own deadpan way. He would have missed all of this had his girlfriend not caught this on camera and given it to him to see more clearly. He smiled a bit, and gave Orihime a hug, which caught a lot of 'aaawwwwssss' in the room.

Everybody was sleeping over in that room that way they could all be together for Christmas Day. The girls took up the couches while the boys had taken up the carpeted floor. As Ulquiorra lay in his sleeping bag, he gave his slightly snoring girlfriend a glance.

'The scrapbook is nice, but having all of my friends and her especially is the greatest gift in my life,' Ulquiorra thought, before drifting off to sleep.


End file.
